Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

The Professional Writer Shows Up

The Professional Writer Shows Up

The fact that a professional shows up seem so basic – of course they do.

But this routine of showing up and taking action every day works.

It can be so much of the difference between the novice, and someone who finally becomes a pro.

A novice needs movitation, inspiration, and acclaim.

The pro wants the same, but shows up and works no matter the circumstance or the result.

“The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the professional shows up, ready to serve the gods.”

–Steven Pressfield, The War Of Art

Tell Sweet Lies Or Bitter Truths

Tell Sweet Lies Or Bitter Truths

To write is to entertain.

To document, maybe.

Like every other art, it prods the consumer to feel the same emotion as the creator.

And people seem to love themselves as much as they like being part of something bigger.

But writing like everything else pops best when it is the opposite of what everyone is expecting.

I think he believed that our job, the job of a writer, is not to get up and say, “Tomorrow, in battle, most of you will die.…” Instead, a writer must entertain the troops the night before. I think he believed that the best way to entertain the troops is to tell stories, and the ones that they seem to like the best are ones about themselves. You can tell sweet lies or bitter truths, and both seem to help, but it’s like Czeslaw Milosz said when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”
–Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions
Sterling Terrell